It sounds like they're just as disillusioned in their political system as many Americans.

"We grow up thinking that﻿ beliefs are something to be proud of, but they're really nothing but opinions one refuses to reconsider. Beliefs are﻿ easy. The stronger your beliefs are, the less open you are to growth and wisdom, because "strength of belief" is only the intensity with which you resist questioning yourself. As soon as you are proud of﻿ a belief, as soon as you think it adds something to who you are, then you've made it a part of your ego."

That's one of the more intriguing aspects of Russian politics, from an American standpoint at least - how Communists AND Czarists both share the right.

Its tradition, although if you believe the horse shoe political spectrum rather than the horizontal linear political spectrum then the idea is that if you go so far right or left you eventually meet the "other side" curving back towards you.

So far, every bit I've heard from the voters on the street implies that they knew the Communists were the only ones that could declaw Putin's party, so they made the practical decision.

Still, I have heard word that there has been some successful rebranding of the Communist party in recent years.

What sort of rebranding? They certainly arent Euro-Communists or Labourites, I think they are still so called "democratic" centralists and command economists or central planners.

When the mainstream parties decided to go into business with the rich, like the "socialists" in France, New "labour" in England, most of the communist parties and organisations became sort of traditionalist, strongly culturally conservative parties which wouldnt be more radical than the post war governments of Europe. The only challenger in Europe to the hegemony of Anglo-Saxon money changers has actually been the German Christian Democrats, a conservative party, its strange indeed.

What sort of rebranding? They certainly arent Euro-Communists or Labourites, I think they are still so called "democratic" centralists and command economists or central planners.

In some ways, it's been more of an "Eurasianist" turn as represented by the thought of Alexander Dugin. I know years ago, many hard-line Stalinists broke with Zugyanov to forge their own political bloc, I'm not up to speed on how well that turned out, presumably not spectacularly well. I know the Communists who returned to power in Moldavia in 2001 still wanted to join the E.U.